Sunday, June 17, 2012

Easy Make-Shift Chocolate Napoleons

I feel like I've only been able to think about dessert recently...

Now, a little dessert-fixation is normal for me (every once in a while, if I have a big lunch, I'll just have dessert for dinner...). My ten-year-old sister Mia asks me weekly if I have anyyyyything other than desserts on this blog (I promise, some real food recipes are coming this week!). Still, my dessert-fixation, like my Briar obsession, seems to have been particularly bad recently. Napoleons, s'mores cups, and I'm eating peanut butter Cool Whip out of the Cool Whip container right now (no, they do not sell this... just mix a few spoonfuls of peanut butter into your leftover Cool Whip).

This recipe makes three napoleons in total, but that's three days worth of dessert in a row... They keep well, and, in spite of my sister Stephanie's concerns, they are indeed good with the pudding + whipped topping filling instead of a homemade chocolate custard filling. And for me, the dishwasher-less, they have the advantage of generating less dishes than napoleons made with a homemade chocolate custard. Enjoy!

Unfold the pastry sheet, and cut along the three folds. Halve each strip to make six rectangles.

Space the six rectangles evenly apart on a baking sheet. Bake in the center of the oven for about 15 minutes or until the rectangles are well-browned and baked through. Remove from baking sheet as soon as possible.

When the pastry rectangles have cooled completely, slice each in half.

Using two whole pastry rectangles per napoleon, assemble the napoleons: layer the pastry and pudding mix so that you have pastry, pudding, pastry, pudding, etc. You should have 4 layers of pastry for each of the three napoleons.

Make sure that you use a top of one of the pastry rectangles on top of the napoleon. Using a colander, sprinkle powdered sugar on top for decoration. Serve drizzled with hot fudge sauce or chocolate sauce (sorry this isn't in the pictures... my hot fudge sauce drizzling did not turn out as pretty as I would have liked!).